


Stasis

by evil bunny wolf (evil_bunny_king)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil%20bunny%20wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Don't worry, Batman. I won't let him get you." Her fingers slid into his hair, what little there still is of it- scratching to his ears, familiar, and he still doesn't know if he's dreaming, if this is some kind of cosmic joke, concocted by his sleep-addled mind.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"But you're dead," he whispered, and she laughed at that and was gone, the miniature universe shrivelling away with her.</i> </p><p>A Spaceship ghost story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a beta perspective (Ejunkiet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ejunkiet/gifts).



It started with the twins.

The dull thud of fists against Plexiglas. Once. Again. Aiden was throwing himself against the stasis pod, tearing at the seals when shattering the window proved impossible, wedging his nails into the seams and wrenching until they broke.

Stiles stood in the opposite corner of the hibernation room, sleeping helmet in his hands. He watched, helplessly, as Aiden lunged again and fell away.

Aiden surged back up.

“Open! Open! I said _OPEN DAMMIT_.”

He stumbled backwards and resorted to kicking it, his army-issued boots skidding uselessly off the casing. When Officer Hale finally succeeded in pinning his arms and began to drag him away he struggled.

His eyes were stretched wide. Blood coursed from his hairline, trickling down his forehead and trickling across his sight, but still he didn’t blink.

His brother didn’t blink, either. He stared back at his twin from behind the scratches on the glass, expression almost peaceful, the flashing lights of the cabin beyond a constellation in his vacant pupils.

Aiden writhed.

“Let- me- go-ETHAN, ETHAN DAMMIT CAN YOU HEAR ME-”

There was the soft whir of an automatic door, and suddenly there were more people were there. A soldier – Scott, Stiles realised, his friend, Scott - wrapping himself around Aiden’s heaving chest. The medic, darting around flailing limbs, and then there was a needle sprouting from Aiden’s neck, plunging before being knocked free and shattering against the polished metal floor.

The four of them struggled together like that, for a while. Like some bizarre chimera with too many heads and too many limbs, and with one, impossibly loud, screaming mouth.

Another voice, also shouting, barely audible over the drums in Stiles’ ears.

“-iles- STILES!”

It was his name, he realised.

“Don’t just stand there- _help!_ ”

Help.

Right.

He looked at his feet. Looked at the beeping stasis pod beside him, his pod, lid left open, and reached for the edge of it to lurch himself forward.

Aiden bucked against the restraining hands. The blood was smeared across his face, now, stark against his paling skin. It made his brown eyes burn.

The voice was still shouting at him.

“Grab his legs! Quickly!”

Stiles’ first attempt was met with a kick to his hip. He staggered backwards, falling against his pod, the protruding wires scratching at his arms - but it wasn’t empty, this time.

When he glanced back over his shoulder Erica was blinking down at him, hip cocked against the pod wall in that favourite summer dress of hers, lips stretched in a familiar smile.

 _Go on,_ she mouthed, pressing a hand into the small of his back. He could feel her nails even through his compression suit, like sharp little claws, that little bit longer than they needed to be - and then he was on his feet again, stumbling back towards Aiden.

The man snarled as Stiles threw himself on his legs and succeeded in holding on this time, narrowly missing a knee to the chin. Locking his hands around his elbows, he ignored the grunts, the bitten off curses, and waited, head spinning from the effort.

It didn’t take long, after that.

First Aiden’s eyelids, and then his arms, fell into limp silence. The shouts became a slurred murmur - and when he at last slumped in Hale’s arms, barely upright, they released him one by one.

Stiles looked behind him. Looked for Erica but she was already gone, his pod lying as empty as he’d left it. Of course it was.

He looked around at the assembled circle instead. At the pale faces of the Triskelion’s daylight crew – or what remained of it, now, he supposed.

First Officer Hale’s eyes caught his briefly – he was frowning, characteristically, as Stiles had already discovered in the small amount of time they’d had to become acquainted – and Stiles looked away, looked towards Scott instead.

Grief was painted in vivid strokes across his friend’s features, a quiet horror in his dark eyes.

_What remained of their little crew._

Stiles forced himself to take a deep breath and ignored the tremor in his fingers.

It was the medic (Lydia, he remembered now, with her red hair slicked back into a bun) who spoke first.

“Take Aidan to the Infirmary. I’ll deal with him there. We’ll see to Ethan after.”

Her expression was set in an impassive mask, mouth firm. She was still in her compression suit, he noticed - they all were - the contact gel clumped in her hairline, but she paused only to glance once more at the closed capsule before she turned and marched out of the room, speaking into her comms as she went.

Silence followed her absence.

In his place at the edge of their impromptu circle, Stiles tried to reassemble the facts.

This was the second hibernation chamber. He remembered it: the buzz of the machinery, the flickering lights, the steel walls and steel floors and a chill that bit through the suit - he’d locked himself in one of those pods when he’d gone to put himself into stasis for their flight, yeah, that was right, and now he was awake, so that meant:

He was in the second hibernation room, and he was newly awakened after their five year trip across the galaxy.

_But not all of them had made it._

It had been a possibility he’d prepared for. Of course he had – this sort of space flight was still new, after all, he’d have been insane not to do the research - and he’d even accepted the costs, or so he’d thought he had. He’d thought he had.

But even from here he could see the pallor of Ethan’s skin within the capsule. The way his cheeks seemed to sag inwards, sketching out the shape of the jaw beneath.

A flicker of movement. Hale hoisted Aiden’s arm over his shoulder, starting after Lydia, and Scott seemed to shake himself from his trance to stumble over and take Aiden’s other side, the two of them heaving the man away.

“Professor Stilinski.”

Stiles started at the name. He swivelled, locking his numb fingers behind him as he looked towards Hale through the flickering lights that edged his vision, and they were almost at the door now, he realised dimly.

Hale met his gaze over Aiden’s shoulder, clear eyes washed grey by the electric lighting.

“Briefing is at ten-hundred hours. Meeting room.” His gaze was unflinching. Demanded obedience. “Remain in your quarters until then.”

Stiles throat clicked dryly around his response, working around the syllables. “Understood.”

An incline of the head. A retensing of a strong jaw, muscles sliding beneath unshaven stubble, and then the three of them were gone, the door sliding shut behind them.

Stiles stood there until their footsteps dwindled away. Surrounded by humming stasis pods and the flicker of their displays, yawning like empty coffins, except the one that wasn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles’ room was quiet when he padded into it. It wasn’t much of a room - a bunk, welded to the wall; a small porthole, over a foot deep, and the bare foot of space by the bed that led to the small tiled area at the back - but it was his and he was blissfully alone.

He beelined for the bed and, ignoring the fact he was still in his compression suit, sat.

After a moment he bent forwards and put his head in his hands, intending to sit like that for a while.

But his gloves rasped as he did so, the ribbed fingertips catching as he ran them through his hair and so he unclipped them and stripped them away, throwing them across the room.

They hit the opposite wall with a wet slap.

Five years. Five years of medical ‘hibernation’, launched between galaxies - his first degree had been shorter than that. A presidential term - was shorter than that, and he didn’t even know who was president of the United States, right now- wouldn’t know, not until they got closer to the research base.

Exoplanet Gliese 581 c. Or rather the orbiting research base ‘Base Camp’ of Gliese 581 c.

He should be overjoyed. He _was_ overjoyed - this position was his life-long dream, after all, and he was – he nearly there.

He stared at his hands. Wiggled his fingers, sticking and unsticking them from each other, watching as the gel strung and popped disgustingly.

All he felt - was gross.

He should do something about that.

He hefted himself to his feet and staggered towards the tiled area, unpeeling the suit as he went.

There was a bucket and packet of water waiting for him in the back, just as he’d left it _five years ago_ , as well as a flannel and a dull body scraper and he pulled the bucket and tool towards him, beginning to scrape away the gel coating him. He peeled away the layers that had glued themselves to every inch of him as if the intervening years had caked into his skin, a parting caress as they’d moved on without him.

Ten minutes and a partial bucket full of ooze later, and he was certain he’d never be clean again.

But after he’d done what he could (he’d just shave his head, he decided, it was a lost cause) he returned to the bed, sat on its edge, and with his clothing limp in his lap, he returned his gaze to his hands.

In the back of his mind he could still see the closed pod. His own pod, open but full, full of bouncing blond curls and Erica’s familiar, curving smile.

He tightened his mouth into a firm, grim line, and pushed the images away.

_Don’t be stupid, Stilinski._

Ethan was dead, he reminded himself. Victim of a malfunctioning stasis pod. And Erica had died - long ago. There was nothing else to it.

He put his head in hands, buried his face in the cool fabric of his cotton shirt and breathed in, breathing in the faint smell of dust, and the remnants of floral detergent, manufactured on a planet far, far from here.

He’d be alright, he told himself, with forced certainty. Disorientation after resuscitation was to be expected, after all.

He was going to be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapters are short, sorry - trying to keep up momentum...! Exposition chapter is expositionary. ;x

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS GOING TO BE A ROMP, GUYS. I've got a lot of this written - but I'm posting the beginning to motivate myself to finish the fiddlier bits. :x


End file.
